One Short Many

    Jack felt like lying on a hard cold marble. His cheeks could feel the cold rough ground beneath him. He tried hard to open his eyes with all the bright lights that covered the room and the back of his head throbbing like someone hit him with a baseball bat on his head. Must have been a bad dream, he thought. Why I am feeling so cold? . Then it struck him. He stood up, his hand clutching the back of his head and looked around. This isn't my bedroom, he told himself, still unable to comprehend what really was happening. He tumbled to the chair besides him and closed his eyes to absorb the pain he was going through. The stark brightness of the room didn't help. He took a moment before he opened his eyes and looked around. All he saw in front of himself was a large empty room, surrounded by white emptiness. There was a small one foot high wooden door at the one end of the room. On his left hand side, he noticed a wall clock hanging with the clock ticking at 1 'o' clock . Just below the clock, was a large white board, which held the letters in large captions 'YOU ARE ONE TOO MANY' . Just as he turned around, he saw a square glass stuck at the middle of the wall. Jack went closer to the wall and looked through the glass. He saw a faint image of himself looking at the glass. But there was something queer about it. He felt like someone was looking at him through the glass. He could feel two eyes as curious as anything looking at him through the glass. Terrified, Jack turned around. He didn't wanted to look through that. There was something unsettling about those eyes.

    Maybe all this is just a dream, he thought. All he could remember was going to bed after a hard day's work at the coal mines. Jack has been working there as the supervisor for the past two months, hundreds of miles away from his hometown. It was a big project for the company and they had send someone as talented and experienced as him. Even though he disliked coming here, he did it for the sake of his company's faith on him. Additionally, the not-so-hospitable locals and their haunting stories about the paranormal activities regarding the coal mines didn't help much in convincing him to stay. Still, he did stay and went through his daily chores as sullenly as possible. Maybe, I am just too tired and having a bad dream. He tried to pinch his arms, and it stung him badly, causing a red sore mark on his arm . That terrified him even more. It wasn't supposed to hurt. He was in a dream. Maybe not. Maybe I am here for real. He felt too terrified to look back. He didn't wanted to see those eyes again. He moved forward slowly and read the words on the board again. It didn't make any sense to him. The pain he was experiencing at the back of his head made it worse. He slowly walked towards the door , opened the hatch and crawled out of the room. He stood up and looked around. He was standing alone in a vast chamber with the same emptiness that he felt inside the room. A small pathway led on his left hand side and made a dash for it , hoping that to be his way to the exit. He wanted to get out of this strange place as quickly as possible. It was a narrow dim lit curling pathway and just as he had made a few paces forward, his hand gashed on a small pointed wooden plank on the side of the wall, causing him to tumble of the ground after his losing balance. Jack cried out in pain, his wrist bleeding from the point of contact. I don't have time to worry about this right now.. He felt his life was on the edge. He quickly took out his hand kerchief , tied around his wrist , got up and set off again , in search of an exit. The pathway led him to another room with no other exit than the one he came in. Dejected, he fell on his knees, panting from all the running. Panic gripped him fiercely, as he saw no way to get out of this place.

    Just as then , Jack saw a small glass pane at one corner of the room. He walked slowly towards the glass and hesitantly peered through the glass. What he saw inside, shook the ground on his feet. There, on the other side of the glass, he saw a bright lit room, with himself lying there on the ground, trying to get up, clutching his head, with his wrist covered in a blood stained hand kerchief. The clock struck 1 'o' clock and the board beneath it, had the message, 'NOW, YOU ARE ONE SHORT MANY'.

Reviews

[Marianne Rose]

An interesting story, particularly with the twist at the end with him looking through the glass at himself on the floor. A terrifying haunting idea, but I want to know so much more. . . Maybe this is just the start of a story that will help resolve the unanswered questions I have about the place he has landed, the one who put him there, how he split in two- ghost images? Anyway, it makes me think a lot about the despair in the first message- of a life that doesn't have value. The last message doesn't have the same clarity- I don't understand, but then, Jack probably doesn't either. Much potential, haunting idea, perplexing ending. Thank you!

[Senn]

Thanks for a detailed review. Appreciate it very much.

[S. von Glaubitz]

I have to admit, I’m not sure I completely get it, but I think it’s meant to be a bit of a puzzler. As a concept, it’s pretty cool, especially the more you think about it. Creepy that the eyes must have been his own. And will this keep going in an endless cycle? Can he return to the original room and confront himself?

I don’t normally nitpick about grammar and whatnot, but the opening sentence is so crucial: Do you mean “Jack felt like HE WAS lying on cold hard marble”?

I was a little confused by the description of the glass in the wall. Is it more like a mirror or a window? Can he see through it to the wall? Is it clear? Can he see the eyes or just feel them?

I feel like I wanted a bigger thing made out of his deciding to go out through the hatch. There’s an almost casual sense of “oh, I’ll just go through this really small door” and then all of the sudden the panic really amps up. I feel like he needed to go through the door as a result of increased panic he was already feeling.

I’m trying to place why having no understanding of what’s actually going on feels so detrimental to the story. Maybe it’s that getting a bigger question at the end, rather than any kind of answer, leaves the story feeling somewhat unresolved. Maybe it’s just a feeling of not being grounded—like it’s too much of a dreamscape. I’d be curious to know if this was part of a bigger story. But anyway, cool stuff!